Last night, Texas Tech students delayed the results for local elections.
As of 7:30 p.m. there were still 60 students at the Student Union Building waiting to cast their vote.
At the Lubbock County Republican Party, the announcement was met with some cheers from the crowd.
Congressman Randy Neugebauer was excited about the news.
“You know what, that’s a great thing to hear that the students at Texas Tech are voting because its extremely important that the next generation get involved in this process because they’re big stakeholders in this as well,” Neugebauer said.
There have been a lot of student led election events that may have had an effect on the student turnout. Organizations have not wasted any time in getting students informed.
The day before the election, Texas Tech League of United Latin American Citizens and Delta Sigma Theta were in the free speech area handing out information sheets with candidates information to make sure students were aware of all the positions up for election and voting locations, according to Texas Tech LULAC president Analhi Rey. Next to some of the running candidates were their election websites when available.
Rey said that they saw roughly 150 people who came to pick up information and that some of them were unaware of all the positions up for election.
“Its just to create more awareness about voting. Especially its oriented towards first time voters because at times they don’t really know the process, ‘Where can I go vote, what do I need to take, who are the candidates,’” Rey said. “Letting them know, having them see that there’s more to voting than just showing up that day. They need to understand and know who are the candidates running.”
The Texas Tech Young Conservatives executive director, Jeramy Kitchen said his group focused on creating activism events centered around the economy and the national debt while also participating in voter registration drives.
“We’ve had all kind of voter registration drives,” Kitchen said. “We either did them by ourselves or we did them in conjunction with other politically affiliated organizations on campus.”
Jonathan Silva, a member of the Texas Tech Young Conservatives, was happy with the turnout.
“To me, I feel like this election cycle has been a success in at least turnout. It doesn’t really matter who they’re voting for but just the turnout in general is a good sign for us,” Silva said at the Lubbock County Republican Party.
The Lubbock County Elections Office will not have the official numbers of how many students voted at the SUB on Election Day until mid November.
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